7 Things You Should Know About California's Napa Valley And It's Wines! 

1. Napa Valley was a totally unexpected wine region.

Settlers in Napa Valley originally had no intention to turn it into a wine-centric region. While wild grapes reportedly grew in abundance in the area, it took one George Calvert Yount to finally start heading down the direction of specifically planting wine grape varieties.

In the early 1800s, only table grapes were grown. Yount was the first to plant the first cultivated wine grapes in Napa Valley, marking a significant turning point. This wasn't just about planting a few vines; it was a deliberate act that laid the groundwork for the future of Napa Valley wine.

Soon after, other pioneers such as John Patchett and Hamilton Walker Crabb helped introduce the first vitis vinifera grapes to the area. But the real star was one Charles Krug, a Prussian immigrant that tutored under wine experts such as  Agoston Haraszthy and John Parchett.

After founding his first commercial winery in Napa Valley in 1861, the knowledge he gained and shared benefited the young California wine industry immensely.

2. Napa Valley boasts a perfect blend of climate and geography... that only 2% of the earth surface has.

Believe it or not, Napa Valley’s signature dry Mediterranean climate is shared with only 2 per cent of the earth’s surface.

An ideal canvas for wine grapes, its sun-drenched days, cool nights, and well-drained soil has resulted in many a variety of red wine grape taking root there, from Cabernet Sauvignon to Petite Sirah. The environment allows grapes to ripen slowly and evenly, concentrating flavor while retaining acidity.

Diverse topography adds another layer of intrigue; the valley itself has different sections with varying microclimates.

These are often due to elevation differences. Valley floor vineyards bask in the gentle yet direct warmth of the sun, while hillside grapes experience cooler temperatures, influencing the resulting wines and giving farmers more leeway to experiment and nurture different grape crops.

For example, the cooler, southern end of the valley near the San Pablo Bay or the warmer, northern end around St. Helena will affect even the same type of wine grape in different ways.

3. Napa Valley is home to a vast array of volcanic, sedimentary and marine soils.

Hang around wine enthusiasts enough, and you'll hear the word "Terroir" being thrown around with what may seem like wild abandon.

Fret not, nothing scary is on the horizon. Rather, terroir is is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect how a grape crop turns out (such as success and flavor profile. Environmental factors such as, you guessed it, soil.

This is where the Napa Valley has a significant boon as compared to other wine growing regions. Over the last 150-million years, geological events lost to time have resulted in an accumulation of a vast array of volcanic, sedimentary, and marine soils.

The different types of soil in different regions adds to the concept of microclimates all along the valley. For example, vineyards located in the higher-altitude, mountainous regions have shallow, infertile, well-draining soil composed of volcanic and marine sedimentary soil types. Such soils have been known to cause grapes to be harvested at lower yields, but helps add intensity, balance, and refreshing acidity.

Even the locations lower down play a part; vineyards on the valley floor have fertile, loose soils while those higher along the valley bowl gain the benefit of both alluvial soils as well as eroded volcanic soils that drain well.

4. America bested the British, and Napa Valley showed up the French.

While Napa Valley's wines had been steadily gaining fame since its founding, there was one event that many wine enthusiasts will quote you to be the turning point in the Valley's fortune, to essentially catapult it into the eyes of the most discerning of the wine world.

And that was the 1976 "The Judgement Of Paris". This scary sounding competition was a blind tasting in Paris pits Californian wines against top French Bordeaux. The outcome was considered so forgone, that only one journalist reportedly showed up to the competition. During the blind taste test, it was even quoted that judges confidently remarked on Californian wines as French.

To the wine world's shock (and the horror of the French), the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and the 1973 Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon as won first and second place, putting Napa on the international map.

It wasn't just a major upset, it rocked the very foundations of the wine world. No longer was France the sole producer of "great" wines! The aftermath? Young vineyards started popping up around the U.S. (think Oregon, Washington and Virginia) and the world — from Argentina to Australia. 

The French had their work cut out for them, all because of a nondescript valley smack in the western end of America.

5. Cabernet Sauvignon is King in the valley. 

Of all the red wine grapes grown in Napa Valley, the success of Cabernet Sauvignon harvests is undisputed. This bold red grape thrives in the region's warm climate, producing wines renowned for their power, structure, and complex flavors of blackcurrant, cedar, and spice.

From the iconic Cabernet blends of the valley floor to the more restrained, elegant expressions from cooler sites, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is less of a uniform expression, and more a chameleon of profiles to varying degrees.

That's not to say other varieties aren't present. While Cabernet Sauvignon takes up about half of the grape types grown there, its also neighbors with more than 36 different grape varieties. Coming in second is Chardonnay (15%), but other varieties such as Merlot (11%), Sauvignon Blanc (6%), Pinot Noir (6%) and Zinfandel (3%) take root.

Land ain't cheap when you've got the Beckham's next door to you.

6. Not just expensive wines, but expensive land.

Napa Valley boasts some of the most coveted vineyard land in the world. Prices can vary significantly depending on the sub-appellation, with areas like Oakville and Rutherford commanding particularly high prices. Recent sale data might be harder to come by due to an unsurprising unwillingness of purchasers to share.

However, we do know from real-estate sources like Vintroux that suggest average vineyard prices in Napa can range from $60,000 to $130,000 per acre for plantable land, with established vineyards reaching $300,000 to $400,000 per acre in prime locations. 

For context, the average cost per acre of land was $1,000 jsut 50 years ago. Talk about inflation. Yikes.

7. Napa Valley doesn't make as much wine as you'd think.

You'd think Napa Valley has a swathe of mega-sized wineries that churn out boatloads of the liquid. Well, you'd be wrong. In reality, most of Napa’s 450+ wineries are small, family-owned properties. Of these families, 80 per cent make fewer than 10,000 cases of wine annually. The entirety of the Valley's output, shockingly, is responsible for only 3.25 per cent of all U.S. wines!

Some wines are produced in such limited quantities they've garnered a cult following, such as Screaming Eagle or Harlan Estate. Screaming Eagle, for example, requires buyers to be on a waitlist, and its bottles sell for upward of £9,000. While not the most expensive in the world of alcohol, it's more about finding an actual bottle than having the money to buy one. 

The winery produces as little as five thousand bottles a year, and apparently see no need to ramp up production.

The Bottom Line:

Napa Valley is considerably a dark horse in its history, and also in the wider history of the wine world. It provides a gloriously complex terroir despite its unassuming location and "tight" topology, and has a barrage of wine grapes that surprisingly thrive in such conditions, and turn out delightfully varied. A man-made environment couldn't have replicated such conditions and variety any better. If you're just getting into wine, I daresay tasting through the length of Napa Valley's varieties would leave you equal to a seasoned sommelier. Let's hope the Napa Valley producers continue producing, so that all of us might have a steady variety of both reds and whites.



Lok Bing Hong A budding journalist that loves experiencing new things and telling people's stories. I have 30 seconds of coherence a day. I do not decide when they come. They are not consecutive.